-
To Helen
- Northwestern University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
✦ 87 ✦ To Helen No, even the unprintable, The harsh I wouldn’t shun. Oh, whom can we rely upon? There’s none to look to, none. But does the arum plead For mercies from the marsh? The nights are free to breathe This rotting tropic dark. Yet you—I thought, I hoped— Would ever after save me And like a lily light my soul For ages, righteous lady! The meadow was acquainted With Hamlet’s ways, or Faust’s, A circling round of daisies, The stalks flew all about. Or barely, barely gleaming, The way a dream unfurls, Ophelia’s shoulder streaming In necklaces of pearls. All night the farmhouse raved, And sleep was kept at bay By feathered clouds. The rain Went tiptoe down the way ✦ 88 ✦ And covered up the corn. And youth was rocked in bliss, The way in children’s snoring A sleepy pillow drifts. * I kissed the curve of bitter lips And thought of ancient Troy: Those alabaster queenly lids, The miracle of joy. A dear and deathly apron, The temple’s gentle beat. Sleep, O Queen of Sparta, It’s early, dewy. . . . Sleep. Then woe in all its splendor, And reveling, burst forth. Alone with it in terror. Should it go mad—what more? Weep on, it whispered. Does it hurt? Then burn her cheek as well! A mother’s love or witch’s curse— Only time will tell. ...